mnot’s blog

Sunday, 19 September 2004

Back

If you’re wondering where the promised travel stories from Melbourne got to, you’ll have to wait a bit longer; other events overtook me.

Right after I got there, Anitra (still here) was bit by a spider (an ironic thing to happen to an Australian expat) and had to go to the emergency room, because all sorts of unpleasant things were happening. Since I was overseas and we don’t have any family nearby, it was a bit touch-and-go for a while, until our lovely friend Angie came over and helped out.

Meanwhile, in Melbourne, I got a cold, presumably from my nephew Brendan, but it developed into something much worse, with a fever and a nice helping of lethargy to boot. When I got home, it only became worse, so last night we went to the same emergency room as Anitra did last week, to find out that I have pneumonia. Lovely. As a bonus, Charlie is throwing up this morning, so he’s off to the weekend doctor as I type this.

Needless to say, this has all made it difficult to write entertaining travel blog entries. However, I was still able to see a lot of family and friends, and visit one of my favourite places in the world. Trip photos are available, and I’ll work on the Opinionated Guide to Travel in Australia soon, but I need some rest first. In the meantime, a few tidbits:

• Federation Square turned out really well, and I take back what I said about it previously. It’s a really good public space.
• In Fed Square, we visited ACMI, which had a really amazing 20-foot projection of Peter Murphy’s Panoramic VR Weblog. Well worth checking out.
• After I shared my thoughts on the current state of WS-*, the kind folks at the University of Melbourne gave me a demonstration run through their Grid labs. The coolest and simplest was Alchemi, an Excel plug-in that lets you harness a Grid (Enterprise or Global) to perform macro calculations.
• My new favourite television show: John Safran vs. God. Episode three is a gem; until the DVD is out, most are available as torrents. Needless to say, you’d never see this on TV in the states.

Filed under: Australia, Personal, Travel